Jamil Hussein: 'Just Getting Good'

One more thing about this: the true measure of the warbloggers' moral bankruptcy (or stupidity or madness or whatever you want to call it) isn't that they believed the people who were lying and disbelieved the people who were telling the truth. The true measure is that they believed the people who were lying because they were lying, and disbelieved the people who were telling the truth because they were telling the truth. In their blind pursuit of the illusory goal of 'victory', they judge all information based on whether it appears to promote that imaginary goal; all other standards (e.g., truth) are subordinated to it.

To be fair, there are people on the left with similar tendencies...but fewer of them, and to a lesser degree, and they are subjected to the scrutiny and criticism of their peers. When Jason Leopold posted his bogus Rove indictment story, a few lefties jumped on the bandwagon, but most were more cautious; when it turned out to be wrong, Leopold lost all credibility with all but a few diehards. I can't think of a single mass delusion moment on our side comparable to that the right has been having with their Jamil Hussein crusade.

Nor is there any likelihood these people--Malkin, Curt, TIDOS Yankee, the whole obsessive lot of them--will lose any credibility among their peers. I doubt that most of them will even acknowledge error. TIDOS Yankee, for example, not only hasn't admitted he's wrong, wrong, wrong; he's now desperately spinning the patently bogus pseudo-story as not over (it's 'just getting good'), and slamming liberal bloggers for not having bought into the patently bogus pseudo-story even after it has been shown to be a patently bogus pseudo-story.

There is a degree of self-delusion that, to my mind, is morally indistinguishable from the worst kind of criminal mendacity. I don't care if these people believe the crap they're purveying; they choose to believe, and should be judged for that choice.

[That's all, folks]